Levinson 383 or Rowland Continuum 500

I have owned both the Rowland Concerto and Continuum 500 integrated amps. Both were stellar performers. The Continuum 500 was very refined, very transparent, portrayed an excellent soundstage with extraordinary imaging.

I actually drove a pair of extremely power hungry Eggleston Andra II speakers, as well as a pair of Sonus Faber Guarneri Mementos with the amp and the performance of both pairs of speakers was extremely good. I sold the Rowland to purchase a McIntosh MA7000, just because I wanted to "try" the Mac. This was a lateral move at best. The Mac is good, but I certainly don't think it to be "better" than the Rowland.

The Rowland "right of the box" was pleasant to listen to, but it improved dramatically over the first 200 - 300 hours of use - to the point that it equalled most separates of my experience.

I can't give you any direct comparison to the Levinson 383, but I will say that, to me, it was a one-box equal to the Levinson No. 32 preamp and No 336 power amps that I used for many years. It is that good!! It is also very close to giving equivalent performance to Spectral separates that I currently use in another system.

Hi Jprice, I have about 150 hours (low volumes) on my C500 and although I feel it is already an across-the-board step up from my former integrated amp (Plinius 9200), the bass of the C500 doesn't seem to be as textured and nuanced as the Plinius. In your recollection did the bass of the C500 improved considerably at the 200 to 300 hour mark? Speakers are Dynaudio C1.

fwiw - the several times I heard the 383 it was grainy and two dimensional

good luck

Noelpastor,

I found the bass response from the Continuum to be well balanced with good resolution. On the Eggleston Andra IIs I had to concentrate a great deal on speaker placement and room treatment to keep the bass under control - it became overpowering when the speakers were too close together or too near the front wall. When I got the speakers properly aligned, the bass seemed to be well in keeping with the frequency response of the rest of the speaker.

The Mementos don't have much bass response below about 35- 40hz, but the Continuum did a very good job of delivering and controlling what bass response was available.

As to whether the bass response improved during the break-in period, It did improve, but not so much as the other characteristics of the amp - transparency, refinement, resolution, soundstaging etc. When I first started using the Continuum, I was still messing around with Eggleston speaker placement and, as stated earlier, the bass response was too full and I had to tone it down through speaker positioning and the use of tube traps.

I do think that breaking the amp in at low volume will take a great deal longer than doing so at normal listening levels (or higher). I would suggest that you turn the thing up a bit and enjoy. . . . .